


The Lie in Plain Sight: On the Paradoxical Nature of Sherlock

by stephisanerd



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: A Scandal In Belgravia, A Study in Pink, Gen, His Last Vow, Meta, Sherlock Meta, The Blind Baker, The Empty Hearse, The Great Game, The Hounds of Baskerville, The Reichenbach Fall, The Sign of Three
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-18
Updated: 2014-02-18
Packaged: 2018-01-13 00:25:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1206028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephisanerd/pseuds/stephisanerd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An ever-expanding series of meta on the topic the narrative structures of Sherlock. As a whole, this is seriously the most mindblowing and important thing I have ever realized about the show. This has absolutely broken my brain, and now I see it everywhere I look.  Also, Doctor Who fans—you're going to facepalm. Seriously. Moffat really has basically managed to turn Sherlock into Doctor Who.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lie in Plain Sight: On the Paradoxical Nature of Sherlock

**Author's Note:**

> Work in progress, though each piece/chapter will make its own coherent point. Also, I can not express how deeply I am simplifying all of the things I am talking about right now. I recognize that I'm grossly oversimplifying and skipping over things and implications, but I needed to be able to simplify it down to talk about in any sort of coherent terms at all, especially to start.

 

I'm going to pose a couple of questions that I want you to answer. They're all answerable with a yes or a no. Assume for this purpose that only one answer or the other can be true.

In series 2, are Sherlock and John essentially dating? In  _The Sign of Three and His Last Vow_ , does Sherlock believe that he matters to John? In  _His Last Vow,_ does Mary shoot to kill Sherlock?

Think of textual evidence to support your decisions. You can form conclusions, right? You have evidence to back them up. Now think about the answers that you didn't pick. You'd have textual evidence for those too, even if you don't necessarily agree with the conclusion. For every opinion you have about the show, how long do you think it would take you to find someone who has an opinion that is the exact opposite of yours? Probably not very long--you're on the internet, after all. You can argue something one way, and someone can argue the exact opposite, and chances are they'll have as much textual or sub-textual evidence as you do to back up their viewpoint.  **Have you ever noticed than any time we talk about the show or anything anyone involved says about it that we end up running in circles?**  “ _Round and round the garden like a teddy bear,”_ as Sherlock so eloquently put it.

Have you ever stopped for a second to consider why all of this is? Have you ever thought that maybe we've been missing something really obvious about the nature of the show and the story that they're telling us? Because we have been.

Consider a couple of quotes:

“ _There’s something – something, something I’m missing, something staring me in the face…Sometimes a deception is so audacious, so outrageous that you can’t see it even when it’s staring you in the face.”_

**The show itself is a deception so outrageous that we can't see it even though it's staring us in the face.** They've told us over and over again. We occasionally see the deception in part, but never in whole. We see, but do not observe. They told us that too.  _“_ _You’ve been stumbling round the fringes of this one for ages.”_

> MARY : Where are you?  
>  SHERLOCK : Can’t you see me?  
>  MARY: Well, what am I looking for?  
>  SHERLOCK : The lie hidden in plain sight.

Sherlock wasn't just talking to Mary, he was talking to  **us**.  _Can't you see me?_ _The lie in plan sight?_ _ **Sherlock**_ **as a** **television** **show is a lie** **hidden** **in plain sight that we've never really seen.** We've watched it for years and never noticed.

Consider for a second who's in charge of Sherlock. Think about all of the stories that Steven Moffat has written on Doctor Who—the types of story that he likes to write. I suspect that if Charles Magnussen were to analyze Steven Moffat, we'd discover that his porn preference is  _The Time Traveler's Wife._  He really, really likes paradoxes.

We have always talked about Sherlock as simply a story and a series of stories that progress in a straight narrative fashion—beginning, middle, and end.  **I** **t is a lie.** They are telling us a story and while it is a straight narrative,  **it is also a paradoxical one.** **T** **he show, as a whole and in part, is a paradox.** The character and their relationships, the narratives, the cases, and the plot elements are almost all paradoxical in nature.  **When you define any element as one thing or another, the exact opposite is, or at one point was, also true or possible.**

**The paradoxes have existed all along.** It started all the way back in  _A Study in Pink._ _It's how the story began._ We opened on the doctor who went to war who has a psychosomatic limp, and the man who is both human and machine. We had 4 impossible suicides that were also murders.

The show is full of examples of paradoxical characters and relationships:

  * Mycroft is a concerned brother and Sherlock's arch-enemy.
  * Sherlock is (or believes himself to be) a high-functioning sociopath but he often deeply cares about those around him.
  * Sherlock and John are both strangers and intimate—in some ways they know each other well, but in others, they know absolutely nothing about each other.
  * Sherlock and John are dating, but at the same time, they're not. People believe them to be, they act like they are, but they claim they're not.
  * Sherlock is both alone and surrounded by friends.
  * John wants danger and adventure, but at the same time he wants a normal suburban existence.
  * Mrs. Hudson is a sweet older lady who helped run a drug cartel.
  * Molly is a meek wallflower who can silence Sherlock with a single look.



The cases are paradoxical:

  * The murders in A Study in Pink were both murders and suicides. 
  * The murders in The Blind Baker were committed in locations in which it was seemingly impossible for them to have been. 
  * The puzzles that Moriarty creates for Sherlock in The Great Game are all paradoxical in nature. 
  * The Hound at Baskerville was both real and fake—it existed, but it was also a drug-induced creation.
  * The case Sherlock and Molly investigate in The Empty Hearse is both impossible and possible—the evidence is in front of them, but it doesn't make any sense.



Plot devices and objects are paradoxical:

  * The cabbie’s gun in  _A Study in Pink_  is both real and fake—it acts as a real gun, but it is fake.
  * A mind palace is and isn’t part of the real world. It does and doesn't exist.
  * The train-car as bomb as John viewed it was active, but it was also disabled.



Characters' actions are paradoxical:

  * Who was Sherlock trying to impress by cracking the code in  _A Scandal in Belgravia?_ Irene or John?
  * Were Sherlock’s actions in  _T_ _he Reichenbach Fall_  to protect his friends or part of a larger plan?
  * Is John’s acceptance of the apology genuine or not?
  * Is Sherlock's drug use in His Last Vow because of the case or because of other reasons?



Some of these have been rendered non-paradoxical—the cabbie's fake gun, for instance. It functions as a real gun for all intents and purposes, until Sherlock points out that it is a fake. At that point, it becomes only fake. Once Sherlock figures out the solutions to the case that he is working on, the paradox resolves. The case Sherlock and Molly work on in  _The Empty Hearse_ is no longer both possible and impossible once Sherlock realizes that Anderson set it up.

**Elements are** **rendered** **real and non-paradoxical** **only** **by their resolution.** It's why upon John's acceptance of Sherlock's apology in  _The Empty Hearse_ , we white out to the narrative of what happened on the roof.  **That, however, doesn't mean that** **elements** **actually truly resolve** **or that the resolution is the correct one** **or the final one** **.**

Many elements have resolved over the course of the show, but don't stay that way. The resolution changes—Sometimes Sherlock acts like a human being and other times he acts like a machine. As a whole, his identity is getting more unresolved and more paradoxical. The same is true of John and all of the other characters. It's true of all of the relationships between the characters. Sometimes John views Sherlock views Sherlock as a human being, and other times he views him as a machine. The way he views Sherlock is getting more paradoxical. John and Sherlock's resolution in the train car—both their individual and corporate resolution--is a resolution of the paradox only in that moment. John accepts Sherlock's apology, but he doesn't let Sherlock back into his life in the same way.  **It creates another** **paradox** **.** Their relationship is becoming more unresolved.  **There are layers upon layers of paradox.** **A** **ny resolution is an illusion** **and it** **generally** **works against th** **e resolution of the** **larger narra** **tives, the individual characters, and their relationships.** _I_ _t's a trick. Just a magic trick._

* * *

“ _Ladies and gentlemen, people tell you not to milk a good speech – get off early, leave ’em laughing. Wise advice I’ll certainly try to bear in mind. But for now...part two!_

This is an entirely related point that needs to made separately, but almost in the same place as my other point. (Another paradox.) I apologize for the sudden shift. I've talked about the more straightforward narrative and character paradoxes, but they are not the only kind that exist.  **There are also ones that involve mirroring** **and paralleling.**  (I cannot express just how much I am simplifying these to talk about them right now--I'm leaving out a lot of elements of my examples for the sake of explaining the concepts. Just bear with me.)

Let's talk about two characters that parallel each other: **John and Janine**. Someone pointed out recently ( [ivyblossom](http://tmblr.co/m31tdBbP8XoE_QcDV-TIFhw), I think?) that the name Janine is a derivative of the name John. They're deliberate parallels of each other. Sherlock is in a sexless, romantic relationship with Janine. He has manipulated her to his own ends. Janine paradoxically sees Sherlock's real nature, but doesn't realize that he is manipulating her. All of this is also true of John and Sherlock's relationship as well. What does that mean of this conversation?

 

> JOHN: Sherlock, she loves you.  
>  SHERLOCK: Yes. Like I said – human error.

Who loves Sherlock? Is it John? Is it Janine? Both? Who does Sherlock believe loves him in error? Janine? John?

The paralleling creates a paradox—The things that Sherlock and Janine say and do in their relationship have been and could be true of Sherlock's relationship with John as well. They are simultaneously true of both relationships, while also only referring to Sherlock and Janine.  **What does that mean of th** **is** **conversations?** (I remain neutral. You all can draw your own conclusions.)

> JANINE: You lied to me. You lied and lied.  
>  SHERLOCK: I exploited the fact of our connection.  
>  JANINE: When?!  
>  SHERLOCK: Hmm?  
>  JANINE: Just once would have been nice.

Both John and Janine have pronounced reactions to Sherlock's manipulation of them.

> JANINE: Just one thing.  
>  JANINE: You shouldn’t have lied to me. I know what kind of man you are ... but we could have been friends.
> 
> JOHN: One word, Sherlock. That is all I would have needed. One word to let me know that you were alive.

They both call him on it. Janine's response is to turn down his morphine pump. John reacts with violence. They both hurt him.

> JANINE: So we’re good, then!  
>  SHERLOCK: Yeah, of course.
> 
> JOHN: Yeah. I know. Look, I find it difficult. I find it difficult, this sort of stuff.  
>  SHERLOCK: I know.  
>  JOHN : You were the best and the wisest man that I have ever known. Yes, of course I forgive you.

They also both end up forgiving him—their own actions are paradoxical—but they parallel each other.

**Their course of their actions in the end though, is not parallel. Janine walks away from Sherlock entirely. John stays. Their actions are exact opposites. They're now mirror images of each other.** They both parallel and mirror each other. (Another paradox.)

It's not just John and Janine. The same type of parallels and mirrors appear all over the place. Major Sholto is a pretty obvious parallel of Sherlock, both in his relationship with John and the situation that he finds himself in. [(X)](http://stephisanerd.tumblr.com/post/74089719400/the-cost-of-allowing-someone-to-write-your-story-major)

> SHOLTO: There’s a proper time to die, isn’t there?  
>  SHERLOCK: Of  _course_  there is.  
>  SHOLTO: And one should embrace it when it comes – like a soldier.

Sholto's situation and the things that he says here parallel Sherlock's actions and the things that he said during the climax of  _The Reichenbach Fall._ Parallel. They're both standing in a situation where they are about to complete a murderer's story by essentially committing suicide.

> SHERLOCK : Of course one should, but not at John’s wedding. We wouldn’t do that, would we – you and me? We would never do that to John Watson.  
>  SHOLTO: I believe I am in need of medical attention

In the end, though they are parallels, they act completely differently. Sholto asks John for his help. He acts in the exact opposite way that Sherlock does in both  _The Reichenbach Fall_ and in  _His Last Vow._

I'm using minor characters here, because it makes the parallels and mirrors simpler to talk about as a general concept, but they exist between all of the major characters as well. Sherlock and John. Sherlock and Mary. Sherlock and Moriarty. Every major character in some ways probably parallels and mirrors every other character.

It's also true that one character parallel or mirrors more than one simultaneously. Think about Tessa's story in  _The Sign of Three._

“ _I don’t date all that much and he seemed nice, you know? We seemed to automatically connect. We had one night – dinner, such interesting conversation. It was lovely. To be honest, I’d love to have gone further but I thought, ‘No, this is special. Let’s take it slowly--exchange numbers. He said he’d get in touch and then... Maybe he wasn’t quite as keen as I was but I – I just thought at least he’d call to say that we were finished. I went round there, to his flat. No trace of him. Mr. Holmes. I honestly think I had dinner with a ghost.”_

If you assume that Tessa and her ghost are meant to parallel John and Sherlock, which one is the ghost? Is it Sherlock, who died and was later returned to life? Is it John who is the one who is moving on and is getting married? In  _The Empty Hearse,_ they both act as ghosts-- Memories of Sherlock haunts John in 221B, and memories of John haunts Sherlock later when he's trying to solve the case.  **They are both ghosts.**

The same goes for Tessa—who is dating the ghost? Is it John? Is it Sherlock? She deliberately evokes characteristics of both of them. It could easily be either one of their stories that she's telling. When Sherlock scans her, two of the descriptors that he comes back with are nurse (Sherlock--who acted as John's nurse earlier in the episode) and cardigan (John--who was wearing a cardigan at the time).  **They are both Tessa.** You could analyze her story either way—you could believe that John is Tessa and Sherlock is the ghost or you could believe the opposite, and you would have evidence to back it up. It's deliberately paradoxical.*

Again, I'm using minor characters for the sake of getting the concepts across, but these sorts of parallels and mirrors appear in the major characters and their relationships as well.

Cases, narratives, and plot elements often parallel and mirror each other as well. The murders (and near murders) in  _A Study in Pink, The Reichenbach Fall,_ and  _The Sign of Three_ are all committed by someone hiding in plain sight. You have the cabbie, the actor and the photographer. In all of the them, the victim is forced to commit suicide. They parallel each other. In  _The Sign of Three_  after his murder attempt fails, the photographer comments that he shouldn't have tried to be clever. Sherlock used to appreciate that sort of cleverness, but now his only response is “ _You should have driven faster.”_ He's mirroring his earlier beliefs. He's also possibly talking about more than one person. Is he just talking about the photographer? Moriarty? Both?

The phone in  _A Study in Pink_ reappears in  _The Great Game._ It's the same phone but different. Paradox. You have a different phone in  _A Scandal in Belgravia_  that's also important to the case. Paradox again. 

Even the  _music_  creates paradoxes. [mid0nz](http://tmblr.co/mpuhT7Xp5ZYo7qztwe4XPCA)  has pointed out that Irene's theme and John's theme are parallels of each other—what does that say of the theme as Sherlock is composing it? Is it for John? Irene? Both? What does that say of his actions as they relate to Irene? To John? Paradox. 

I've only touched on a couple of examples here, and I've actually simplified all of them and am leaving out some of the more complicated variations, but the truth of it is:  **We might as well be** **walking through** **a house of mirrors.** **Everyone and everything is a parallel and/or a mirror of something** **and** **usually** **a parallel and/or a mirror of more than one thing.** If it's not yet, it probably will be or we just haven't seen it. I'm not spelling out every paradox they create explicitly because it would be almost impossible, but I want to make this point very clear:  **T** **he mirroring and paralleling are paradoxical in and of themselves, but they create actual** **paradoxes for the characters and in the narratives.**

(And now we finally come to my first thesis.)

The paradox of the overarching narratives and their elements, as well as the paradoxes of the individual characters and their relationships with each other have been gradually building and growing. By the end of series 3, all of the main characters, all of their relationships and all of the narratives are entirely paradoxical and unresolved.*  **If you think about any of series 3 for long enough, either in piece or in whole, it becomes** **a paradox.**

_\--_

So here we go:   **This is only the tip of the iceberg.**   It is one tiny point that I wanted to make.   **It's not the whole of what I'm talking about at all.**   I just think it's the thing you need to understand first before I talk about the rest of it.  It's also just a good hook--You look at it and go "HOW DID I NOT SEE THAT?"  It's way more interesting and exciting to start it out like this than for me to lay out all of the points that I eventually hope to make-- which is what I'm going to do next, at least in brief. It should make what I'm attempting to talk about both in part and as a coherent whole make more sense. (Should be going up either 2/19 or 2/20): My meta on this topic is growing at an alarming rate, so for the purposes of this series, I'm going to focus on Season 3 and talk specifically about it as far as John and Sherlock's relationship is concerned. I will occasionally discuss their individual identities, especially as they relate to their relationship with each other.

Concurrently, because I have absolutely lost my mind, I'm probably also going to be working on a series (though it will be on the back burner) on the other the other lie in plain sight that we should have seen. (Yes, there's at least one more. Possibly several.)  I'm also working on a bit piece on what the paradoxical nature of all of this means about what Moffat and Gatiss say in interviews. (Hint: They probably fancy themselves the cleverest in the world. They're always intentionally sending us running in circles.) 

Notes:

*The thing that underlies most of these examples is that Sherlock and John are both parallels and mirrors of each other, which means that when other characters parallel or mirror them, you get a fun house effect.  _I recognize that._ Right now, though I'm trying to use smaller examples, because making that larger point in a coherent fashion without having first examined the text would be really really difficult.

**There is maybe one resolution over the course of the show so far that is an actual resolution, though it it is currently still paradoxical in nature. “You. It's always you.” It is the only resolution of any sort that we have ever gotten. 

Originally posted [here.](http://stephisanerd.tumblr.com/post/77100904387/the-lie-in-plain-sight-on-the-paradoxical-nature-of) 

All transcript excerpts from [here](http://arianedevere.livejournal.com/).

 


End file.
